London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has launched plans for ‘the toughest crackdown’ on older vehicles ‘by any major city around the world’. An extended Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will be part of a major public consultation launched on July 5.

The idea of an expanded ULEZ was already on the cards, but the new proposals go further and will be implemented sooner than the original stratergy.

Parts of the Mayor’s detailed proposals include plans for a new national scrappage scheme, as speculated on catmag.co.uk over the past few weeks.

Diesel vehicles stand to loose the most, but all vehicles that fail to meet Euro-4 standard will have to pay a surchage for each day they are used. For light vehicles this is likely to be £10, rising to £100 for HGVs and coaches. This will be in addition to the congestion charge.

The public have until Friday July 29 to feed back on the first round of the consultation, further more detailed consultation will take place later this year and some measures could be implemented as early as 2017, with the rest following in 2019.

Sadiq Khan said: “Tough challenges call for tough measures, so I’m proposing a new £10 charge for the most polluting vehicles in central London from 2017, followed by an even stronger crackdown on vehicles pumping out hazardous pollutants”.